Week Fourteen News and Notes

[LordJeffBuck]

BCS Mess ... One Final Time....

For the 13th and final time this season, a top-5 team lost to an unranked opponent. This week, the victim was #2 West Virginia, who lost at home to a 4-7 Pitt squad in the annual Back Yard Brawl rivalry game.

Of all the top-5 tank jobs this year, WVU's loss might have been the worst. First, the timing was absolutely horrible - all the Mountaineers needed to do was win the game, even in the ugliest fashion possible, and they were in the BCS title contest. As Michigan demonstrated last year, no team can lose a game this late in the season and hope to make it into the championship showdown.

But beyond that, West Virginia had recently become the newest media darling of this season (succeeding to the crown originally held by the likes of multi-loss teams such as California, Oregon, South Florida, Boston College, etc.), and the 'Neers had been dubbed unbeatable by the national press corps. Apparently, a heavy dose of "southern speed" had migrated north to Morgantown, and the WVU offense was so damned fast that they would actually "lap" the likes of Ohio State in a footrace. Well, as an Ohio State fan, I'm sure glad that the Buckeyes don't have to play Pitt in the title game, because the Panther defense must collectively possess absolutely unreal speed. I mean, they held the vaunted Mountaineer track team to just 104 yards on the ground (2.5 avg) and 183 yards of total offense (3.2 avg). Former Heisman candidate Steve Slaton gained just 11 yards on 9 carries (1.2 avg), and the allegedly unstoppable Pat White chipped in 41 yards on 14 carries (2.9 avg). Unlike their earlier choke job against South Florida, West Virginia didn't have any turnovers to hurt their cause (and create an excuse for their friends in the media) - they were simply outplayed by an extremely mediocre Pitt team, and they couldn't move the ball regardless of what they tried.

The Title Game....

Last week, I asked the following question:

Originally Posted by Week 13 N&N

Seriously, is anyone excited about a West Virginia-Missouri match-up in the BCS title game? I didn't think so.... Maybe they'll both lose their season finales, and Ohio State and Georgia will play for all the marbles....

Of course, as a Buckeye fan, I wanted at least one of the pretenders to lose so that Ohio State could "back into" the title game, just like Florida did last season. But as a fan of college football, I wanted both of them to lose because, quite frankly, neither of them deserved to be there. More than any other sport, college football is all about tradition, and I just didn't want to see two programs with a combined zero national championship in their un-storied histories lining up against each other in the BCS title game. Even if Ohio State somehow gets squeezed out of the BCS bid, I'd much rather see traditional football powers like Oklahoma, or LSU, or Southern Cal, or Georgia playing for the crystal football. Now West Virginia and Missouri can go back to soccer, or field hockey, or dominos, or whatever they do best, and two real football teams can face off on January 7th.

The Wave of the Future...?

So much for the spread offense being "the next big thing" in college football. Both Pitt and Oklahoma had little trouble shutting down the allegedly unstoppable spread attacks of West Virginia and Missouri, respectively. But spread offenses provide great highlight reel material, so the talking heads will continue to be enamored with teams that run that system, even though it has never been a proven winner.

Quick Hits....

If the SEC is really the best conference in college football, then what was Tennessee doing in their title game...? Southern Cal beat UCLA handily to win the PAC-10 crown, but will it be enough to vault the pre-season unanimous #1 team back into the title hunt? Doubt it.... Hawaii capped a perfect regular season with a 35-28 victory over PAC-10 patsy Washington to win the WAC title, but will the Rainbow Warriors get any BCS love? Last year's WAC champ, an undefeated Boise State squad, was able to knock off Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, so the 'Bows deserve their shot, too.... Once again, Oregon proved that they were a one-man team, losing to Oregon State 38-31 in double overtime.... Army-Navy. Best. rivalry. ever. It's what college football is all about. Heck, it's what America is all about. Let's just hope that Army can eventually get competitive once again and snap Navy's historic winning streak, which now stands at six games and counting....